SCHUMACHER Stephan

SCHUMACHER was born in Bütgenbach near Eupen (BE).
His professional career reads as follows:

After his carpenter training, Stephan Schumacher first worked as a cabinet maker in the workshop of Leon Müllender, his future father-in-law, in Eupen. In 1948 he decided to become an organ builder and first worked five years with Haupt in Lintgen (Luxembourg), then a few months with Stahlhut in Aachen (Germany), followed by three and a half years with Verschueren in Tongeren (Belgium).
From the beginning, he showed a lively inventiveness that characterized him throughout his life. His first invention was a new stop of wooden flute pipes with a particularly rich and round sound thanks to their bulbous quadrant shape. Its first version can be found in his native town Bütgenbach.
At the end of 1956 he decided to start his own business and settled in his father-in-law’s workshop on Werthplatz 54 in Eupen. He initially worked closely with Nikolaus Loewen from Luxembourg and was instrumental to the design and implementation of the organs in Elvange, Bettembourg and Stadtbredimus.
His first own instruments, still with electric action, were built in the late fifties and early sixties in Belgium, in Tubize, Gottignies and Grüfflingen. They were actually delivered under the Leon Müllender name.
From the mid-sixties he followed the evolution of modern organ building in Belgium and its return to the mechanical slider chest organ. Subsequently Stephan Schumacher developed a long series of small instruments, partly at the suggestion of Professor Hubert Schoonbroodt, with whom he developed a long friendship.
He built his first mechanical church organs of some importance in 1966 in Saint-Nicolas near Liège and in 1967 in Schönberg, where he applied another invention, the so-called “Stülpdichtungen”.

SCHUMACHER made his first two inventions while he was working with Georges HAUPT in Lintgen between 1948 and 1953, the year he left Lintgen and married Elisabeth Maria MÜLLENDER in Eupen.
SCHUMACHER thus resided in Lintgen between 1948 and 1953.
He made his last invention in 1999, at the age of 76.
Stephan SCHUMACHER died in 2002 in Eupen.
In 1988 his son Guido SCHUMACHER took over the “Manufacture d’Orgues Luxembourgeoise Westenfelder“ in Lintgen (see Addendum).

FamilySearch database (GP82-Z28)